


ignorance may not actually be bliss...

by pavlovslola



Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Loose interpretation of a mythical creature, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Probably ooc, Self deprecating Ash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 11:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18590044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavlovslola/pseuds/pavlovslola
Summary: ...but it certainly is less work.Ash goes to check out the blighted lands before Augus cleanses them, after realizing how dangerous they could be. He's kept his searches a secret, not wanting his brother to know he still worries, knowing Augus would take it as him not trusting him. Usually he finds what he expects: nothing but dead water and a cold feeling in his chest. One day he finds life where there should be none.[Canon universe, probably OOC motives and discussions. Set somewhere between COFT and TIP.]





	ignorance may not actually be bliss...

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a quote from the Welcome to Nightvale, something I personally think Ash would enjoy. I wrote this about a year ago and was too embarrassed to post it, but I finally decided to clean it up and see if anyone else was interested in taking a peek at my little sandcastle of a fic that I built to play around in. 
> 
> I find myself really, really interested in Ash's thoughts, feelings, and motivations, and I wanted to explore them a little with this.

The river was unnaturally still when Ash found it, but the eerie calm was almost natural enough after all this time. Staring at the blighted lands and waterways Augus had left never stopped feeling like laying eyes on a corpse, not yet decayed to the point of being unidentifiable. 

The river led into one of the lakes he'd already searched that day. It once housed many creatures, and bountiful plant life, but like all the other places Ash had seen it was now devoid of anything but an encroaching sense of death. He stared out over the stretch of it, feeling less empty than he'd like to. It had been years since he began these hunts, yet it somehow always chilled him. These mummified remains of formerly thriving habitats, once thought to remain cursed forever. 

He approached the waterway calmly, his eyes searching it over for anything unexpected, any sign of life that could mean harm for his brother. Any families come to grieve their homes and gut Augus again. 

Ash didn't know exactly what Augus did when he fixed the blighted lands. Augus didn't want to discuss it, would incline his head and dance around the subject whatever way he could. Looking out again over this expanse of blackened land Ash could scarcely believe it at all, except that he had seen time and time again the life return so suddenly and so powerfully. 

Augus came and left a dead thing living. Ash came and left it dead. 

He stepped into the river. Normally water seemed to embrace him like it was beckoning him home. This water almost felt distant from him, like a barrier repelled it from his skin even as his jeans soaked through. He shivered. The river water was dark, almost as if the muddy bank had been disturbed, though Ash knew there was no life stirring below. As he waded upstream, he saw something flicker, and came to a cautious stand still. There was something floating ahead of him, like a fallen log, but it shown a dull opalescent even in the overcast day. When he was sure it wasn't moving of its own volition, he approached it. 

It was a body. A long, sinewy body covered in thin scales that seemed to turn invisible in the parts where they dipped entirely under the water. It looked like a large serpent, its finned head leaned over sideways into the river. A wyrm? They were solitary creatures, staying in their waterway their entire lives and never once leaving. They also decayed quickly. How could the body of one still be here so many years after the river had died? Ash looked over the creature, feeling that deep coldness sweep through him again. How did it not get easier seeing the aftermath of his brother's craze, when he knew what all had been done? When he had people like Gulvi and assassins and, well, _everyone_ to remind him just how far things had gone? How could he still feel _sorry_ when it felt as though all his empathy should be used up?

The stillness was broken by a sudden, gasping noise. He stared down in horror as the scales shifted slightly, another wheezing breath escaping its belly. One eye opened, locking on Ash.

The thing was alive. Its voice crept into the air as if not spoken but sundered forth from the wind itself, sounding like a gasping breeze. 

"Ash Glashtyn, kin of Augus Each Uisge, blighter of lands. He has left his work half finished in this place. Come you to complete it?" The wyrm's visible eye watched Ash not cautiously, not like prey watching the predator, but with an eerie calm. 

"What? _No_ \-- you... _How?_ How are you _alive?_ " His voice croaked, the realization of this creatures survival filling him not with awe or wonder but with _terror._ "It's been years. _Years._ " 

"Has it?" It asked, sounding almost curious, were it not so tired. "Time moves on. I have withered, but not crossed. My waters have stilled, yet I remain. I could not tell you why."

"You...you've been alone here? This whole time?" _Unable to feed?_ The idea was sickening, that this thing should have a fate so cruel. 

"The others of this water died, or moved," the creature answered simply, as though it was understandable. 

"They couldn't take you with them? You were alive! They just left you here _alone?_ " 

"I am bonded to my river, Ash Glashtyn. I cannot survive being severed from its cool touch." 

"But you've survived it, can't you see? This water isn't what it was. You could still get out." His mind raced as he tried to think of how he could save the wyrm, get him 

"I cannot." 

The words were stated so sincerely that Ash couldn't argue the point, but he barrelled on. "Then, you can wait a little longer, yeah? My brother -- I know you won't want to see him, I _know_ , but he's coming to fix this. He's going to help you, okay?"

"He cannot. My time has come and will soon be gone." 

Ash clenched his fists, struggling with what he knew was truth. If they had known there was a survivor here, could they have saved them? Like Julvia? Why hadn't he just come _sooner_? Would it really have been so hard to see the handiwork his brother wrought _before_ Augus had the idea to right his wrongs? Why hadn't he been able to?

"Do you --" Ash paused, summoning the same pained courage he needed every time he offered someone this. Every time he turned to a human and made himself offer them a way out. With them he was careful, gentle. Here he couldn't find himself to be either. "Do you want me to make it quick?" 

Ash put a steadying hand on the creature, just below the head. He could sense the lack of strength in the muscles beneath his, how the creature couldn't possibly fight him off. The serpent eyed him for a long time before making a low chuffing sound that must've been a laugh, though it sounded like the rattling of scales. Or bones. 

"You would have to severe my head from my body," it finally replied, "and my blood would poison you. It may not kill you, but it will make you wish it had. You may let me die slowly. It is not so bad, to trickle out." 

Ash stood in silence for a long moment, a hand on the scales of this creature. They weren't quite smooth, like river rocks that hadn't yet eroded. "Do you hate him for what he did? A lot of people do. A lot of people hate me for letting him do it. It's been a big hate train in the fae world, I guess." What the fuck was he talking about? Shit, he should leave.

"I cannot judge your kin, Ash Glashtyn. Kin may cast judgement on kin, kings may cast judgement on their people. Dying things cast no more than their own shadow." The wyrm didn't pose any question, and yet Ash still felt like he needed to answer for something. 

"I don't judge him," Ash said, immediately, the words coming out right but sounding so wrong. Thoughts of those days flooded him, emotions springing to him out of what he'd thought was a dry well, reminders of how it felt to be told what his brother was doing those years ago. He gave a hollow laugh, staring down at the murky water. "I guess I do, hey. But not as much as I should."

"Can one see the space between their own eyes?" The wyrm asked, sounding distantly, tiredly amused. 

"What?" Ash looked up, confused. "No...?"

"Then how can one judge ones own judgement, Ash Glashtyn?"

Ash drew silent for a long moment, then gave a bark of laughter. "I could see it with a mirror, you know. The space."

Another whistling noise like wind through a cavern, this one sounding almost like a noise of agreement. "And how is your looking glass? Do you find it clouded by anything?" 

"What am I, Alice?" Ash laughed again, the sound more broken. He sighed. "You remind me of my therapist somehow." He gave a wry grin. "Fuck, will this be hard to explain to her. What do I spin you as? Someone my brother hurt, just woken up from a coma? Do you think she'd buy it?"

The eye watched him contemplatively, silently. Ash's grin turned self-deprecating. "Just human stuff," he explained weakly. "Don't mind me, just rambling away to someone too weak to escape me." _Someone dying_ , a voice hissed at Ash. _And why are they dying again? It's not just some fucking fever._

"What have you come here for, Ash Glashtyn?" The serpent asked, drawing Ash from his thoughts.

"What do you mean?"

"You come not to kill me. You did not know I was here, to desire to heal me. Why come you to this lost place?"

"I've been... returning to the blighted lands before my brother, to scope them out. He got... really hurt, the first time he fixed one." Ash swallowed, hand twitching to touch the soul bond out of reflex. " _Really_ hurt. I just want to make sure that doesn't happen again, you know? That some fae with a grudge and the desire for revenge isn't, you know, out here biding his time, waiting.

And yeah, I get that he's protected when he comes to these places, I _get it_." He thought of Gulvi, quick to plant a knife in Augus but so aware of where to stick it to keep him living. Of her growing, _grudging_ respect for someone she wanted to kill for so long. "But I just need to see for myself. I just... I just need to _see..._ " He trailed off, his hand twitching over the cool scales. "I just need to see what we did together, his poison and my complacence," he said finally, a quiet realization. The wyrm didn't interrupt, and after a long moment Ash continued.

"Augus seems... better, after fixing the blights. He's drained at first, sure, sometimes held up over what the price is but... He seems better, afterward, you know? Like he's draining a wound. And I...," Ash stopped, frowning. _I what?_

"Do your wounds fester, Ash Glashtyn?" 

Ash laughed, the sound still bitter in his own ears. "Yeah... yeah, I'm just a pus filled mess I guess. I've been sick. He's been sick. Why is he getting better faster than me?" It sounded petulant, and he hated himself for it. He always wanted his brother better, so how could he also feel so left behind?

"The waters move as they wish," the wyrm said, that whispering, windy voice sounding almost soothing in its calm. "A trickle is more to a draught than a waterfall is to a river."

"He had it worse than me. He had _everything_ worse than me, so how is it that _I_ feel like I will _never heal_?" Again they felt like a child's words, like someone screaming out into the world about how unfair it all was, and yet he couldn't stop them. Couldn't stop feeling them. 

"You feel such an abundance, Ash Glashtyn. It floods you. Look to build dams that do not hold all your water, but that let it out carefully and intentionally, so as not to spill over and drown the life in you." 

Ash laughed tiredly. "You really are like my therapist. How can you tell me how to be healthy when you're like _this_?" He stopped, realized the words came out with a sharper point than he'd meant. "I'm... sorry, hey."

"It hurts to heal," the beast said simply. "In this, you hurt yourself more than you hurt me."

Ash pointed his weak smile at the water. "Yeah... Yeah, I do that a lot."

They sat together, in that blighted river, somehow almost at peace. The scales underneath Ash's hand writhed suddenly as the wyrm's body spasmed. It gave wet gasping noises, like a fish suffocating out of water. The sounds subsided after a moment and the spasms stilled. The creature stared at Ash through the one open eye. 

"You're really going to die soon aren't you?" Ash asked, quietly. The vast creature didn't stir. He pushed on. "Why -- why do you think you lived so long, when so many fae wasted in those first months?"

The wyrm was silent for so long Ash thought it would not answer that, either. "We are, all of us, stronger than we believe. We are also weaker. Perhaps there is an exchange, that we should be made to trade our strength when we've no more use for it. Have you felt weak, Ash Glashtyn?"

Ash swallowed, his throat working against him. "I have," he said, voice thick.

The voice like a dying wind made another contemplative sound. "Perhaps no longer. I feel more tired than before, myself. So tired."

"Are you in pain?" Ash asked, wanting to do something for this creature, wanting to ease it all somehow. "I could -- I could compel it away? If you'd like?"

"My waters dying brought me pain. I have pained for what you say has been years, now. This tiredness brings me peace, a knowing that it will end. I would not have you take my suffering from me before it is gone for good. Ash Glashtyn." 

His name was said softly, given power somehow. "Yeah?" Ash urged, quietly. 

"When my body dies, it will begin to decay. The decay will poison the water for all who enter for seven months, without the right life to consume it. Do not allow your brother to come here until that time has passed."

Ash stared, stunned. "Why would you protect him? Us? We did this to you, we... We did this to so _many_ of you." 

"I have said it is not in me to cast judgement. I would no sooner do so as I would judge a storm. All storms break, and when the havoc they have wrought is done, there is peace. You give me peace, to know the storm is done. Will you accept your peace, when your storm ends?"

Ash ignored the question, afraid to think too hard about that answer. "Do you want me to stay here with you? So that you don't have to go...," He cut himself off, clearing his throat. The wyrm shifted against him, catching his meaning. 

"I was born of these waters alone, and to them I will return alone." It spoke solemnly, firmly, but the tone softened as it continued. "However, your company in these moments was not unwanted, Ash Glashtyn. I hope one day your own rivers run clear." 

"Thank you. For... for everything," Ash said. The voice inside him hissed again -- _shouldn't you be saying you're sorry?_ But for some reason he couldn't. They weren't the right words. 

Ash heard that whispering sound of scales being rattled, something like affection in the creatures gentle laugh. As if it knew what he was thinking. The wyrm said no goodbye, but when it closed its eye and went lax, Ash knew that was what he was being given. He took a deep breath and stepped away, sinking under the water. The dead water resisted him when he went to teleport, but eventually he was gone.

**

Eight months later, Ash stood at the edge of the river once more. It had been a week since Augus had breathed new life into it. Ash had almost wanted to ask to be there for it, but it felt like... Like he would be interrupting an intimate moment, somehow. So he bit his tongue, watched his brother leave and then come back drained but somehow sated.

Standing above the water as it lapped at him, clung to him as living water desired to do, it seemed so impossible that such a place could've ever been dead. But he had seen it. Had held a dying creature in it. He sucked in a steadying breath and walked deeper. 

It hadn't been hard, necessarily, to spin a fumbling lie that other blighted lands needed attention before these -- though it had been awkward. Augus had been bemused but eventually rolled his eyes and accepted Ash's claims. As his brother had turned away, Gwyn had fixed Ash with a calculating look that almost seemed... knowing. Ash had grinned and shrugged and walked off to take care of his own business. 

He inhaled, deeply, the scent of the river water. It smelled differently than it had as a corpse. Various scents mingled, now, as opposed to the once eerie staleness that had clung to him long after he'd gone home. New shifter fae had moved in, animals had reclaimed their long lost homes. There was the distinct sound of insects and frogs making their voices heard. 

Ash did not hear or smell or see any sign that the wyrm had ever lived here. He wondered what it was like, to leave behind nothing, no sign of ever having been. Was it cruel, then, that he felt secure in knowing fae would remember him when he died? Was it hypocritical to also find the thought as terrifying as it was comforting? He hoped they remembered him better than he was, and he hoped they remembered him worse.

Ash hadn't hoped that the wyrm may have survived those months. He had known the creature was gone as soon as he had teleported away. But there was a peace, now, in seeing that what he knew was true. A peace he hadn't known he had sought. Catharsis. 

He realized over those months that he'd been an idiot. He had been seeing the damage but not the healing, had focused so much on reminding himself of what to feel sorry about that he had forgotten to feel thankful amends could be made. It had been, in its way, just another fucked up form of self harm. Just another way of forcing himself to feel guilty. 

Ash stepped further and further, finally reaching a deepness he could begin to sink into. He swam as low as he could into the river, feeling its writhing life flow through him. Felt it invite him to fade into it. He stared up through the water toward where the sky must be.

He did not feel hale. He suspected he wouldn't for a long time, as everyone kept telling him. But for just the moment, he felt the slightest inkling of healing. Of moving forward. 

Ash smiled up at the sunlight reflecting through the rivers surface, closed his eyes, and teleported away from the depths.


End file.
